Fu Shuheng glanced at the opened ointment on the bedside table, and the bright red hickey beneath Qin Qing’s fair collarbone flashed through his mind.
His gaze darkened slightly as he gave a calm order: “Find out where she is. Bring her back to the old residence so Grandfather can meet his granddaughter-in-law.”
“I’ll get right on it!”
Yao Jin looked as if he were facing a grave threat and quickly left the room.
Nightfall.
Qin Qing strolled along at a leisurely pace, passing through dimly lit alleyways before stopping before an old mansion that had recently been the site of frequent paranormal incidents.
She lifted her eyelids slightly, surveying the decaying, mold-covered, dilapidated residence heavy with yin energy.
It was here that the original owner of this body had lost her life.
Qin Qing stepped up the stairs and stood with her back to the old mansion, waiting in silence.
Behind her, within the mansion, it felt as though a pair of eyes were fixed on her—a gaze like a cold serpent’s tongue, licking at the back of her neck, sticky and damp enough to churn one’s stomach.
As if oblivious, Qin Qing lowered her head to check the time.
—Five minutes and counting.
Before long,
a flashy luxury sports car came speeding over, followed by a black commercial vehicle.
“Yo! Isn’t this Qin the little lapdog? What are you doing here?”
A handsome man stepped out of the car, eyeing Qin Qing with a teasing look. His opening words were flippant.
“Not trailing after Fu Yuanchen today? Don’t tell me you got scolded again? Tsk tsk… You never learn, do you? Being a lapdog to this extent—you’re one of a kind!”
Standing on the steps, Qin Qing looked down at the slovenly man from above, an icy chill seeping into her eyes.
“Tang Qinian?”
Tang Qinian raised an eyebrow and grinned cheekily. “What’s up? Calling for your big bro?”
Qin Qing’s brows furrowed slightly as she sized up the man who had no sense of propriety.
Tang Qinian—one of Liu Qingyan’s lapdogs.
He was the one who had captured the original owner tonight, dragged her into the old mansion, and tormented her for a long while.
When he’d had his fill of fun, he handed her over to a group of bodyguards to humiliate. After the original owner died a miserable death, her body was dumped on the street.
The book described how she died half-naked, covered in marks of humiliation, even her hair filled with revolting things.
“Master Tang—”
Several burly bodyguards in black got out of the commercial vehicle.
Tang Qinian’s face was full of mockery as he stared at Qin Qing with ill intent.
He raised a hand, pointing at her, and said with a grin:
“Grab her.”
The bodyguards immediately charged up the steps, surrounding Qin Qing, and reached out to seize her.
“Ah—!”
A scream rang out—but it wasn’t from Qin Qing.
“Bang—!”
One bodyguard was tossed down the steps.
“Crack! Bang—!”
Another bodyguard, his arm snapped, was thrown down by Qin Qing.
Tang Qinian was utterly stunned, staring at Qin Qing as if he didn’t know her anymore, his eyes gleaming with shock.
The last bodyguard was dumped at Tang Qinian’s feet as he watched Qin Qing approach at a leisurely pace.
“Since when did you get so good at fighting? If I’d known you had this kind of skill…”
“Bang!”
Before he could finish, he was kicked flying several meters away.
“Cough, cough…”
Tang Qinian lay sprawled on the ground in a sorry state, clutching his kicked chest. His face twisted in pain as he glared at Qin Qing with indignation.
“Qin, you little lapdog! Are you trying to murder me?!”
Qin Qing stepped forward, planting her foot on the man’s chest and pressing him back into the ground.
Her red lips parted as she sneered: “Trying to catch me to curry favor with Liu Qingyan?”
Tang Qinian winced in pain, a strange look flashing across his face. Flustered and furious, he snapped: “What does this have to do with Liu Qingyan? Don’t tell me she scolded you again?”
Qin Qing frowned. “Then why did you grab me?”
Tang Qinian shouted in exasperation: “To sell you! Sell you overseas!”
Anyone familiar with him would know it was just an angry outburst.
But Qin Qing took it at face value and nodded. “And before selling me, you’d drag me into the old mansion to take advantage of me? Then have your bodyguards take turns humiliating me?”
Tang Qinian, who had been full of fury, now wore a look of shock and absurdity.
“What the hell are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?!”
His shocked, angry tone and the ridiculous expression on his face didn’t seem fake.
Qin Qing snapped coldly: “Answer my question!”
Tang Qinian finally caught on and gritted his teeth in anger.
“Fine! Yes! I wanted to take advantage of you!”
Qin Qing pressed down harder with her foot and said in a low voice: “You’re asking for death!”
“Hiss—” Tang Qinian cried out in pain: “Little ancestor! Go easy on me!”
That cry of “little ancestor” struck Qin Qing’s mind like a thunderbolt, and fragments of blurry memories flashed rapidly before her eyes.
Voices surged into her ears like a tide, quickly flooding her mind and seizing her deeper memories.
“Little ancestor, what’s so good about Fu Yuanchen? How could you fall for something like him?”
“Look at your big bro here—I’m better looking than him, richer than him. Why not marry me instead?”
“Qin Qing… you’ve been blinded by greed!”
“Qin, you little lapdog, off to see that bastard Fu Yuanchen again?”
“Little lapdog, that bastard Fu is cheating on you—he’s in a hotel room with some young model…”
From the fond, indulgent “little ancestor” to the later exasperated “little lapdog,” Tang Qinian had witnessed the original owner’s pathetic side as she groveled without dignity as the male lead’s lapdog.
Qin Qing moved her foot off Tang Qinian, pressing her lips tightly together, fury crawling into her eyes.
—The original owner’s memories she possessed had been watered down!
Tang Qinian scrambled up from the ground, cursing under his breath, “Damn it! I must’ve skipped checking the almanac today—how the hell did I run into a little lunatic like you?”
He kicked the bodyguard beside him. “What are you playing dead for?! Get up and help me!”
“Young Master Tang, my leg’s broken—”
The bodyguard sprawled on the ground said through gritted teeth, his face twisted in pain.
“Shit!”
Tang Qinian muttered a low curse, shooting a hostile glare at Qin Qing, who stood there lost in thought.
“What are you thinking about? Don’t tell me you’re thinking about that bitch Fu Yuanchen again?”
His tone was dripping with disdain, carrying a hint of frustration at her lack of spine.
Qin Qing didn’t answer. Her expression was grim, her mind elsewhere.
Her dismissive attitude riled up Young Master Tang, and he blurted out without thinking, “Is there anything in that head of yours besides Fu Yuanchen? Me taking advantage of you? What’s that skull of yours even for—decoration?”
“I wouldn’t dare lay a single finger on you! Believe me, your brother would have me tied up, my legs broken, and dumped in the sea to destroy the evidence in a heartbeat!”
Qin Qing tilted her head, her clear, limpid eyes fixed on Tang Qinian.
“Why are you here?”
Tang Qinian froze for a moment, then pointed at the ancient mansion with its tightly shut doors, saying in an annoyed tone:
“The old man in my family just bought this place, and it’s haunted. He brought in a master to take a look.”
Qin Qing nodded, but her brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
Tang Qinian was a classmate and close friend of the original body’s older brother, and he genuinely cared for her.
He wouldn’t do what the book described—brutally torturing the original body, then handing her over to his bodyguards to toy with until she died.
So then… how exactly did the original body die?
“Whoosh—”
A gust of eerie wind swept by, cutting off Qin Qing’s train of thought.
She looked up, staring at the ancient mansion with its sealed doors. Something inside was stirring restlessly. The air grew thick and viscous, reeking of decay and rot.
Qin Qing sensed several streams of Yin Malevolent Qi closing in, and among them, one human presence was racing rapidly toward the door.
She raised her hand, fingers moving swiftly through divination calculations, soft murmurs spilling from her crimson lips.
“Kun Gentle Physique, Backlash against the Qian Master.”
“Grievance Qi transforming into Malevolence, heroic souls denied passage.”
“The hexagram points directly to—”
“Death by vengeance!”